Arizona immigration law: Will it hurt Mexico's drug war, as US lawsuit says?

Mexico applauded the Obama administration's lawsuit against the Arizona immigration law. The US lawsuit argues that the Arizona law undermines the effort to fight crime, especially the drug war. What do Mexicans say?

Carlos Chavez/AP Photo/The Arizona Republic

Carlos Garcia, far right, speaks in support of the US Justice Department's lawsuit challenging an Arizona Immigration law on July 6 in Phoenix. The Obama administration sued Arizona on Tuesday to throw out the state's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law and keep other states from copying it. Mexico supports the lawsuit.

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July 7, 2010

By Nacha CattanCorrespondent

Mexico City

Mexico’s government applauded an Obama administration lawsuit brought Tuesday against the Arizona immigration law. Some analysts here agree with the lawsuit that argues the Arizona law undermines the drug war. But others say the suit diverts attention away from a more important goal for most Mexicans: US immigration reform.

The Arizona law makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in the state. It also requires police to determine the immigration status of a person stopped for other infractions when there is “reasonable suspicion” the person is an undocumented migrant.

While immigrant and human rights groups also expressed content with the Justice Department's case against Arizona, some ordinary Mexicans and academics were not enamored. They saw the suit as mere pre-election maneuvering for the Hispanic vote while a more politically costly immigration reform stalls indefinitely.

“Immigration is not one of [Obama]’s priorities next to the recession or the elections,” says Pedro Isnardo, presidential policy analyst at the UNAM university in Mexico City. “Although he is not minimizing immigration he is now giving it legal attention because he knows he doesn’t have greater influence in other realms.”

The lawsuit comes on the heels of Obama’s urgent request to Congress last week to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Some security experts in Mexico also said that an argument in the federal lawsuit claiming the Arizona law will undermine the drug war by diverting resources away from targeting “drug smuggling and gang activity” misses the point.

It will “create fear and distrust of authorities in the minds of legal foreign nationals and good citizens with illegal status in Arizona who might be very useful in helping to stop the traffic of illegal drugs through their contacts in foreigner networks,” says Malcolm Beith, a freelance journalist and author of a forthcoming book on the drug war, "The Last Narco."

The suit also argues that only the federal government, and not a “patchwork” of local entities, can set immigration policy – an apparent reference to other states looking to pass similar laws. In addition, the U.S. government says that the law will cause legal immigrants and visitors to be harassed, and requests an injunction to stop the law from taking effect July 29.

Mexico has strongly condemned the law, filing an amicus brief last month in a lawsuit brought by major civil rights groups. Also in June, governors of Mexican border states said they would not attend this year’s Border Governors Conference unless it was moved from the scheduled location in Arizona. The boycott led Gov. Jan Brewer last week to cancel the September meeting, which has reportedly caused a split among US governors over whether to hold the conference in another state.

For some Mexicans, the US lawsuit is not a defense of civil rights, but merely a step the Obama administration is taking to restrain a state that is overstepping its authority.

“It’s not good or bad; it’s what they should be doing,” said Francisco Adrian Martinez, a 24-year-old engineering student in Mexico City.